Thank you, good morning, everyone, delighted to be coming out with our first half of 2023 results. We just lay out on the first slide, some of the metrics, and you can see there that we are uplifting our quarterly dividend. This is continuing-- This is our core dividend, so it's now up 20% to $0.03 a share. Our total production for the half was 9.2 million barrels of oil equivalent, which is slightly up on the equivalent period. Revenue at $547 million, which again, is slightly up, and net debt, which is slightly up at, again, at $380 million, but at good levels. Looking at the right side of that slide, just the highlights.
You can see there in terms of operating uptime, improving year-on-year. You know, we're finding now that we're getting reduced losses and benefits from additional export routes and certainly, our COO will cover that in his slides. Progress on OB3 pipeline with our partner, and this is quite a critical catalyst for the ANOH Gas Project. Revenue, you can see there in terms of 6.1 million barrels of oil lifted. Modestly improved production offset by lower realized oil prices, and then gas price, you know, is relatively stable through the period and the volumes are slightly up. It shows that we are a cash generative business, particularly at these commodity levels.
MPNU, we'll talk about that in a sec, but really, you know, we, we announced that we extended that Share Sale and Purchase Agreement in May, and we're now obviously engaging with the new administration with a view to getting that closed out this year. The last one to say here is on, on this slide, is just in terms of a bit of a board update. In line with our good governance and flagging and identifying early our board changes, our current CFO will step down for retirement next year, and the board has approved Eleanor, who's the current Vice President Finance, who will then be now appointed the CFO-Designate, and then will take over from Emeka when E meka steps down next year.
Okay, just wanna talk quickly about the new government. You know, we see, obviously on the 29th of May, President Tinubu come into power, We've seen a lot of activity in the first two months. I think you'll see there, I think, focused in the right-hand side of the slide there. You can see From the 29th of May to the week of the fifth of June, a number of actions were taken. The petrol subsidies were, the fuel subsidies were removed, That's been talked about for quite a number of years, but no one had actually done it. That was quite a material step. There was four Executive Orders signed, We should highlight those on the left-hand side of the slide.
The Special Advisers were appointed, which we see as a real direction of this President, of this administration, is to really put in experts into the various ministries. On the 19th of June, there were appointments of Service Chiefs and dissolution of all the boards, in preparation for what we're seeing now is the ministerial lists are coming out. They're not appointed yet, but they will be appointed in the coming weeks, and we're starting to see some of those ministerial lists appear, I think, obviously yesterday, and we'll see that, we'll track that over the coming weeks. You can see there's a number of orders. There's, you know, Electricity Act was quite critical in terms of sort of a more of a deregulating of that market.
The FX market was liberalized, and you'll have seen that obviously being investors and where the naira is at the minute. A lot of activity and, and aligns to where we're going as a business in terms of our, of our transition. Let me hand over to Sam, who will then go through the operating review.
Thank you very much, Roger, and good morning, everyone. Our operation performance for the first half of the year has also been very solid, being the second highest in the last decade, if you look at the numbers and the charts on the left-hand side of this slide. This is underpinned by our Escravos to Omobe pipeline that continues to deliver value to the business. Since inception has delivered, we've pushed through about 3.2 million barrels of crude through that line. And, just to give you some context, the value lost if we didn't have that line is about 1.6 million barrels. So really delivering value to, to, to the business.
Also, we've noticed and witnessed some reduced losses in the Western Asset in particular, also, improved gas performance in terms of our operational efficiencies. If I just go down on asset by asset basis, the OMLs 4, 38, and 41, that we call the Western Assets, continue to produce. We have not been able to arrest the decline because of some wells that have not come on stream. I'll talk to you subsequently about that. Our OML 53 evacuation continues via the to the Waltersmith Refinery. Our TNP, the evacuation line also hasn't come back since. That actually negatively impacted our performance in the period.
Overall, if you look at OML 40 production is up by 24%. This is also supported by timely delivery of our wells and higher production up times. In essence, when you pull all this together, you will see very strong production performance in the first half of this year. If I go to the next slide, just to give you a bit of flavor on the drilling performance. Year to date, we've completed five wells, four of those on the OML 40. The rigs, we have two rigs currently in OMLs 4, 38, and 41, in two of the locations, and then we have one rig on OML 53. The wells, in terms of revised plan, you can see where we are headed to.
One of the most significant thing that you will see, just to address the shortfall in OML 4, 38, and 41, is that in this quarter that we've just entered, we are mobilizing three additional rigs to the asset to ensure that we recover fully by the end of 2023. If I just go straight into the midstream performance for Seplat. On Oben, our vision continues to be for us to fully maximize the installed capacity in Oben. Our current performance in this period continues to be very strong. We've delivered 120 MMscfd average in H1 2023, and average gas price continues to be also very strong, $2.87 per Mscf.
Overall, in the operated asset in Oben, we continue to show very strong delivery. I know Roger has spoken too, but I just give you a bit more flavor. So far, we've completed, achieved 93% mechanical completion of the plant installation, and the grouting process has also witnessed a very strong progress in the first half of this year, with the engineers that built the London Underground on site in Nigeria, helping us to complete the grouting of the island section that we already put behind us. The Spur Line as well is making some good progress. Between the OB3 and Spur Line, we now have Q3 2023 as completion date for those two major lines.
In terms of being ready for operations as well, one additional well has been delivered by SPDC, while they are on location for the second well. The last that I would like to talk to is the Sapele Gas Plant. If I just take you on early win, we have commissioned the associated gas compressors that we have installed in the plant, which is what we used to call the Accelerated AG solution. So we are now on cruise control to ensure that we deliver the overall supply AG gas AG by next year. The project is about 75% complete, and this will bring in another 85 MMscfd of gas into the local domestic market.
Additionally, this will also improve and bring in an LPG product into the market. Overall, I would like to end by just highlighting that the strong operational performance that Seplat has recorded in the first half of this year is also underpinned by a very strong safety record. On this point, I will hand over to Emeka, who will take you through the financials.
Thank you very much, Sam and Roger. Good morning, all. We have presented a very strong financial outcome for this half year for Seplat. The revenue is up on the back of higher production despite lower oil prices for this period. You can see our revenue per $79, target $107 last year. We sustained gas prices and improved, achieved about $2.87 on gas prices. However, unit OpEx went up on account of AEP utilization. AEP costs about $2 higher than the TFP cost in terms of CHF. Also, EBITDA went down on account of lower oil prices.
Our closing cash of around $80 million, yes, is down, but this is affected by the devaluation in terms of the Naira balance of our $14 million, the devaluation effect, and also a higher dividend paid out, you know, for this half year against 2022. Net Debt to EBITDA is strong, though it went up, our leverage is still very good. I'll speak to that on the following slide. It's up to 1.22x in terms of Net Debt to EBITDA. On the next slide, you'll see the details of the financial, particularly on the P&L side.
We have, we have spoken to the revenues, spoken to the cost side in terms of higher, higher CHF on the, on the, on the AEP line. G&A will have been flat, except for unexpected legal costs to defend the company against some shareholder action, which was quite intense this half year. The estate loss I've spoken to, about $14 million, this is our Naira balances. I will, I have a slide on the exchange rate. I will speak to that when I get, when I get to that. In terms of other financial assets and, and Naira, other financial assets and the Naira liabilities, we are fairly matched.
The, where we felt the impact of the valuation in terms of the cash we are holding as at, end of month of July. The tax expense, you can see just about $2.8 million. We have a significant tax credit in form of ACRES that has moved the tax, moved from a 65%-66% tax bracket to a 5% tax bracket. That helped us to stabilize the profit after tax during this period. I thought about our cash generation, quite, quite strong. We brought about $4.4 million and also generated about $259 million from operations. Realization of the cash in terms of capex and dividend payments.
Also during this period, on the Elcrest side, the principal by the RBL is about $11 million during this period, and we close that at $9.1 million cash. The Naira currency in the country has experienced fluctuations due to the devaluation of the market, unification of the rates, and also the implementation of a single window for FX transaction of the I&E window. As such, the rates have gone up from about 466 to it's moving every day, but I think we ended at about mid-700 for the end of June.
In terms of how it impact on our business, for gas revenues, it's flat, because the gas price is in dollars, but it's paid based on our new window. We expect that we'll continue to receive increased naira for our gas sales. GNA is going to go down further for naira expenditure. In terms of its conversion, it will be lower, we're going to have a positive impact on GNA going forward on account of the exchange rate devaluation that we've seen. Cash balance is going to be negative, and of course, in terms of traditables and other financial assets, however, the liabilities side, it go to positive.
We will continue to optimize our contracts to align local currency related transaction to be settled in naira. That is the way we can manage foreign currency risk out of our balance sheet. I don't know whether you are aware that in terms of production, liquid and gas, we on average, about 60% liquid and 40% gas. Also in terms of revenue, on average, about 80/20 in terms of foreign currency and naira. We use naira to settle naira obligations so as to not have significant naira balances to expose us to devaluation going forward. On our note on the capital structure, I spoke a bit to this.
We have $281 million and $650 million borrowed out in the market and payback of $11 million on the RBL side. Our leverage is still strong, at 1.2x composites in terms of net debt to EBITDA. Basically, we'll say that we'll continue to manage the finances of Seplat and continue to mitigate the risk we're seeing as the economy in Nigeria, you know, gets more active. We believe we had a passive economy in the past eight years, but we believe that we're going to show strong performance. I hand over to Roger.
Thank you. Let me go to the final two slides. The first slide is really setting out the priorities for the second half of this year. Obviously, we're in that now. It really is to, with the wells delivery, it's a focus to get us back on track of delivering those remaining wells. You know, and again, that drilling will then actually address the natural decline we have. Then focus on the export routes just to make sure we continue to get revenue performance improvements. It really will be focused on the ANOH Gas Plant for the final part of this year and get it into first gas. Then obviously a real focus on MPNU, the acquisition with this new administration.
Just on the sustainability side of the business, or not side of the business, but overall, you know, we're obviously looking at the new energy pillar and looking at a number of opportunities. We are obviously gonna work through those in due diligence with a view to getting to FID through the board. Flaring out our, our gas, you know, obviously that's quite a big part of our CO2 emissions, and all of those flare up projects are on track and focusing on that. Then we have some solar power being deployed in our communities, and as part also as our focus on delivering access to energy to our schools and hospitals in, in the areas that we operate.
In terms of CapEx guidance, we give you a range there, $160 million-$190 million, and in, in half year, you know, we're, we're on track in that range, and that's why we've put it here. We expect the second half CapEx to be similar to the first half. On the final slide, we just lay out our three by three, in terms of our metrics. Obviously the first one there is delivering guidance. We've left the guidance at 45-55. We're right on, slightly, to the positive, on, on middle there. We expect that to continue. In terms of the capital investment, I've just talked about that.
The drilling, again, we've talked about that, and really it's the, you know, get from five wells in the first half to 16 wells overall. In the middle, three areas, we wanna look at gas monetization, first gas. Look at MPNU, which we've talked about there, and also the new energy, some of these opportunities, and really those opportunities about maturing the best ones for our overall strategy. The final three, there's some fiscal strength. You can see that we are a cash generative business, $2,059 million of cash, and we expect that obviously to continue through the year. Net debt, again, that is to really reduce that, bring it down. It's reduced down $318 million, and our low net debt to EBITDA ratio is to continue those.
The final one for obviously for shareholders is, you know, we've got a core dividend increase by 20%. That doesn't obviously talk through the special dividends which we still retain, and we would make obviously the decision that when we know the year-end results. The $0.12 is a core committed, and we're paying $0.03 this quarter. Let me just hand it back to the operator for questions. Thank you.
If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and wish to remove yourself from the question queue, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask a question, please ensure that your phone is unmuted locally. To confirm that, star followed by one to ask a question. The first question comes from the line of Alexander Cyvek with GSAM. Please go ahead.
Hi, gentlemen. Thank you very much for presentation. I have a few questions. I'll go one by one, if you don't mind. So for Forcados Terminal, there were headlines that it was out for two weeks in July, and the recent attempt by Shell to bring it back online was unsuccessful. I'm just wondering if you had any engagement with them on the terminal, and what's their outlook to bring it back online? And if you mind sharing how much oil did you ship via the terminal in first half, please?
Okay, That's it, just one question? Okay.
Yeah, that's the kind of first and, and, and second one, probably. Yeah.
Okay. Thank you. Sam?
All right. Thank you very much for that question. Yes, indeed, you are absolutely correct. The Forcados Terminal went out due to some obstruction around one of the loading platforms. We are in constant engagement with SPDC, and they are working towards the delivery and re, re, a recovery of that line. We will also confirm that we are engaged with them almost on daily basis. They have lined out activities that they need to carry to repair and restore evacuation via the terminal. The only negative impact they are having at the moment is the weather condition that is affecting the divers that go underwater to fix the leak. They've given us a timeline to restore, to restoring the terminal into operation.
The second part of your question is how much volume we exported via the terminal in the first half of the year. We exported a total of just roughly about 2 million barrels of crude through the terminal in the first half of this year.
Thank you. Thank you so much. My second question is on, on gas business. Just looking at the, at the, at the segment breakdown, it seems gas business is loss-making in the first half. Can you elaborate on the reason behind it, and if we expect it to come back, to being profitable, going forward?
Yeah. Okay, let me just hand that across the Emeka.
have you talked about the-
Let me repeat it, maybe you didn't hear it. He's just saying in the first half, the gas business looked like loss-making as part of the... When we do a separate reporting of it. That's the first question around that. The second question is just, how does it look like going forward in terms of-
Yeah, once the gas business, as you said, you know, remain, remain profitable. I'm trying to see exactly the segment, segment reporting. Well, let's, let's pause this. I'll come back to it, please. Let me get it first.
I think, like, and to say just generally, and I think, I think, you know, when we strip out quarterly our segmental reporting, sometimes you get anomalies in it. I think just fundamentally underlying the gas business, it is a profitable business you know, a lot of the expenditure obviously has been, you know, committed in, the Oben plant.
With these gas prices sitting at an average around, $2.85, thereabout, to $2.90, and Mscf, it's a profitable business. Sometimes you can get anomalies into it, but we'll certainly look into and revert back, before the end of the year.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you. My last one on, on GNA. Just, you know, for, for modeling purposes. I, I do understand that, there's been a one-off this quarter with litigation, and since last year there is also some, some element of, additional costs related to MPNU transaction. If we're thinking about long-term trends, so normal quarterly level probably for that line is around $20 million ballpark. I, I'm just wondering with, with, FX, rate movement we've seen, and assuming one-offs are gone, what should be the, the kind of normal level we'll be looking at, going forward?
Yeah, maybe I'll answer that quickly. I mean, just, yeah, when we saw, yeah, last, last year, we did have MPNU costs going through there, the bulk of those. The GNA, this year, you rightly identified is, is obviously litigation, which we, you know, we, we did not foresee any of that. That's probably put the quarter up by about $20 million, in total, or $15 million-$20 million. We strip, strip that out, and I think you'll start to see that is probably, and then, and then annualize that, that's kind of the levels we would expect. We've driven through a lot of GNA changes.
On, on the back of last year, our, our GNA levels were, you know, in our view, too high, and therefore, we brought a lot of cost saving through there in terms of cost control around travel, you know, training and everything else, other cost line items. You just need to take a look at that $15 million-$20 million anomaly out for the first half, and then that should give you a, a sort of run rate going forward.
Understood. Understood. Thank you so much.
Yeah, Roger, I'll come back to the gas question.
Oh, sorry. I think we're going to answer now on the specific segment on the gas.
On the gas, yeah. It, it's just the, the valuation, the impact. That, that, that's, that's what, what we have, because the gas is priced in, in dollars, but received in, in naira. Yeah. Also the receivable as well, will have to be repriced based on the, on the current rate. Yeah, that's what led to that. Yeah.
And then just obviously adding to that, I mean, like, obviously with the timing of the one-to-one exchange rate, there was a massive movement from the CBN rate to where, where the I&E window is. That is, I&E window, whatever. The, that then meant in the half year, you had a translation of the balance sheet effectively. Because the timing of that, you have a one-off hit through, through the through the accounts. When you get to the end of the year, you'll, you'll see probably more of an averaging of that hitting, because you'll be, you'll be doing it over the, over the year, in, in, in question. Therefore, that's just exemplified and just magnified that. As I said before, the underlying gas business is profitable.
Understood. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Once again, to register for a question, please press star one on your telephone. The next question comes from the line of Nicholas Stefano with Red. Please go ahead.
Gentlemen, hi, it's Nick Stefano from Red. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you.
Okay. Brilliant, brilliant. Good to chat again. It's, it's been a while. I've got three questions to ask. I'm gonna ask two and then a follow-up. The first is on the dividend policy. Roger, I remember was maybe a couple of years ago, you had this the policy that the dividend will move in line with gas revenues. Obviously, you know, last year you kind of like halved the core dividend, now you make mentions that, you know what I mean, there might be kind of like, you know, a more regular, like, special dividend as well.
I'm just trying to understand, you know, if there's kind of like a deviation from the current-- from what I thought was maybe, you know, a past sort of like, policy that, you know, when ANOH is kind of like back up, you know, up and running, you know, that's when you're gonna start giving big dividends. Is that still kind of, is that still like, you know, a part of the plan? That's the first question. The second question is on, on the CapEx. I'm, I'm a bit confused about what happened there, because, you initially you're going to drill 18 wells, and now it looks like it's gonna be 16 wells for the year, but and yet CapEx is, is, you know, I mean, the range is up by $30 million. What happened there?
You know, especially after the devaluation of the Naira, I would expect it to actually be even lower, not higher. You know, if you can comment on that as well, please. I'm gonna ask the follow-up later.
Okay, let me just go to Emeka for that first question.
Yeah. Thank you, Nick. Really nice to talk to you again. When we went to the market, the, our dividend policies that we communicated is a core dividend of $0.05 and a top up, depending on the performance of another $0.05. That has been what we've done over the years. Then this year, last year, we then moved to quarterly dividend. Move that dividend to $0.025. So that meant really at the time we communicated our core dividend were going up to $0.10 last year, and then this year we are taking up to $0.12, what we did it in the 1st quarter. In terms of dividend policy communication, we will do that later on in the year, where we'll, where we'll reveal our capital allocation framework.
We're thinking about that. You will see a more definitive and precise, communication on its relation to cash generation at the time. Okay. Yeah.
Let me, yeah, yeah. Let me deal with, I'll deal with the capex one. Just, just to add to that, Nick, you know, in terms of the, you know, what we've been trying to do for a long time is, is tie part of that dividend to the gas business. You're absolutely right. In terms of ANOH, I mean, obviously ANOH is not up and running yet. It's not hit first gas yet, but we would expect ANOH to be a very big, long-term, stable contributor to that dividend. We'll certainly be looking in that direction. As Emeka said, we're coming out with capital allocation later, and it really will be sort of showing the sources for that dividend going forward.
Therefore, in the, in the short term, we kept, we kept our core and special as our dividend policy, but obviously upping the core. And then I would expect that to change, probably next year once we've come out with a, with a new, new policy. In terms of the-- your, your question on the CapEx, you know, what, what we define is, is, is, you know, we talk about 16 wells, that means we talk about spudded, completed, hooked up, and producing in the year, okay? What you find is, if there's delays, you'll, you'll, you'll be spending a lot of money spudding wells and everything else, but they won't be hooked up and, and producing in that year. And that's what we'll see.
We'll see in the back end of the qu this year, a lot of activity, but because we won't be able to complete it, you'll still be incurring the CapEx. The CapEx number will be in there, actually, the production won't happen probably till next year. We won't count it in that 16. The 16 is gonna be more than 16, is the answer. We just for our accounting purposes, we only say what's actually producing.
The increase in the CapEx range, is that, just, you know, some elements of the drilling operations were a bit more expensive than initially anticipated? Is that, you know, just normal cost inflation? Just want to kind of, like, get an idea of the drilling.
Specifically in the range, 'cause obviously there's a range in that drilling activity, okay? It depends what we can get in, in what, what time frame. We, we thought it better rather than go with a fixed number, we'd actually put a range on it, just to give you a bit more guidance around that. If, as I said earlier, you know, we would expect it to be in around the levels of H1, but actually, you may well find that, that it's a bit more, which is why 160-190.
Okay, fair. My follow-up is pretty much on the naira. I think, you know, now that it's kind of like being, being floated and, you know, there's the first I would say maybe humans might be turbulent in terms of, you know, where the naira is. There's gonna be quite a bit of loss effects, adjustments, effects, movements, kind of like in your cash flow statement there that will impact the cash balance. I want to understand as a sort of like rule of thumb, how much cash you want to keep as naira and how much in, you know, other, other currencies, just to be able to get an idea of how much that impact would be quarter-over-quarter and depending on the, where the naira is.
As a policy, we try to keep 25%, so 5% of our balance is in foreign currency and 5% in naira, in stable, in stable period. But also, as a matter of contracting and invoicing, you will notice that because of the big differential between the official rate and at the time, or the multiple exchange rate, most of the contracts, you know, were being done in dollars, so to protect the cost of those contracts. Otherwise, the contractors cannot perform. You find that going forward, because of the adjustment rates, we'll be able to pay out more, we do pay out more naira.
It's also important for us, we, we are looking at our policy to adjust our Naira holding going forward, at least at this turbulent period or destabilize it. That's something that, that we are doing. You also know that in our currency, and we continue to make a lot of payments in Naira, so we will may be holding balances from time to time, but we will. We're trying to see if we can drop it from that 25%. Whatever that is possible, whatever is possible, you know, you know, that we can achieve to keep the balances low, we will do that going forward. You talked about the turbulence.
We, we believe that the turbulence will settle after a while, at least at this, point of, of, if you know, the market. Yeah.
Yeah. So you, you said, what's the percentage you want to keep in naira as a kind of like, stable sort of?
No, we said-
Percent.
we keep currently 25%.
Okay, 25%, okay.
We are going to adjust that going forward. We, we are looking at our, our current naira requirements and see how much lower we can, we can get that to.
Okay, sir. Yeah. All right, thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Dmitry Ivanov with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Can you hear me?
Yep, we can hear you.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much for the update and presentation. I have a few questions. Maybe the first one on this MPNU transaction, right? I guess, like, my kind of question is what kind of, provided that the transaction is green lighted, let's say tomorrow, how do you plan to approach the funding of the transaction? Because I remember we discussed you had some commitment from banks before. Like, I'm curious to understand, in terms of the funding and the deal valuation, how did it change in the past several months? Are you ready to fund the transaction, even if, like, the relevant regulator highlights the green light transaction? That's my first question.
The second question would be on the situation with this evacuation of oil through Forcados terminal. If, I understand correctly, you, you, you mentioned that the evacuation of oil is currently suspended, but what, what is the current timeline? I think you mentioned that there is a timeline to fix this issue, how is it possible to use AEP pipeline at the moment to evacuate oil from OML 430, 38 and 41? How should we look at this as an alternative route at the moment? My last question would be on your kind of capital structure strategy.
You, you kind of mentioned in the, in the press release that you're looking at different opportunities to kind of to optimize capital structure, including potential, like, buybacks of the, of the bond. Would it be possible just to provide more color on your view on the capital structure? Do you want just to reduce the absolute amount of debt, how... Which instrument of the capital structure you would like to target and, and et cetera? It will be kind of helpful for us. Thank you.
Okay, thanks for those questions. Okay, I'll, I'll just kick off the first one. In terms of MPNU, obviously, we signed an extended Share Sale and Purchase Agreement. There's still a court process underway between, not us, but between NNPC and MPNU or Exxon. That will continue, and everything else around that. Look, what we've done is what we're in control of. Obviously, we have those funders for the transaction or existing providers of capital to us, and naturally, we've kept them warm around that. We don't foresee any issues in, you know, hitting the execute button on that, once we get the go-ahead from the President or from the administration.
In terms of the evaluation, and again, we monitor that regularly, but we, our view has not changed. It is very, accretive transaction, around that in terms of value. Sam?
Yep. Okay, thanks, Ivan. On your second question on the Forcados terminal. In terms of timeline, the absolute timeline that we have discussed with SPDC to restore the Forcados terminal is 1-2 weeks in terms of actual number. We put a caveat on that because of the weather conditions. It has to be a safe operation, and we have divers going underwater to go and fix it. From time to time, you get negative weather impact, and the divers are not able to go down. That is why, excuse me, we put some margin on it. Overall, in terms of assessing the actual work to be done, is in a matter of 1 week, 2 weeks maximum. The second question is, are we using AEP to evacuate crude out of the OMLs 4, 38, and 41?
The answer is yes. That is also in my report out, I shared that through... Since commissioning of the AEP, at the times when Forcados had been down completely, that our production could have been zero. We have seen evacuation of up to 1.6 million barrels of crude from July last year to date. This is one of those moments. We are currently evacuating our production out of OMLs 4, 38, and 41 via the AEP, while Forcados is down, because evacuation through the AEP goes to the Escravos terminal. Thank you. Okay, I'll take the share about transition of excess capital, capital. Our major focus currently is on MPNU transaction, so we're keeping cash for that transaction.
We'll continue to look at all options, and, like I said, later in the year, when we guide the market on the capital, capital, on a capital allocation framework, we'll give more color as to the options at the time. We'll continue to look at all options for our excess cash there.
Under understood. So basically, thank you very much. So if I understood correctly, that the funding in terms of the bank commitment to provide funding is still, is still there. You don't, you, you don't have just to go and kind of attract a new financing. You, you have standing commitments from, from banks to fund this transaction if, if it's green lighted tomorrow?
Yes, the, before we signed the SPA, we are fully funded and we committed that to the market, and we're keeping all the banks on. We're not aware of any bank that has entered the club currently. However, we'll continue to keep money depending on the speed at which we want to complete the transaction. We could use our own liquidity to, to complete and then, you know, rebalance with the, with the bank. The bank commitments are there.
Understood. Understood. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
The next question comes from the line of Nikhil Pat with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Morning. I just have two questions left, probably quick ones, I'll ask all of them. Going forward, what do you see is your run rate CapEx that you think the business needs in order to maintain your current production levels? That would be my first question. The second question you mentioned about the MPNU transaction and the court cases. Are you aware of any hearing date that has been set for the court case about the MPNU transaction? The last one is more of a modeling question in terms of by when should we expect your tax expenses to sort of return to more normal levels? That's it for me.
Okay, I'll, I'll get Emeka to answer one and three together, and then I'll deal with MPNU.
I think the very last one.
The tax. When do we expect the tax to kick in, obviously, in terms of the, of the fair tax? When do we see that running out?
Oh, okay. Okay, okay, I would expect on the capex level, we expect the capex level to normalize to a normal annual capex of about $160 million. That, I will spend every year. The second question on the, on the defense, actually, we currently know that because the Aquarius on that side have come into profitability, we start with that, we'll start amortizing that shortly. I know we have these balances take us to a $100 million amount, so, yeah, so we're all okay, so.
Okay, just in terms of the MPNU transaction, just for everyone's benefit, there, there are two things. One is that there's a court ruling, which is a, which is a preserved status quo court ruling between, it was the next party ruling between, the government and, and Exxon. That's really just a preservation court ruling. The, the, the, the real focus is an arbitration between, under the joint operating agreement between the two partners. We, we understand that's likely to be heard next year in terms of that, that overall process. In terms of the timeline, how long that will take, we know we're not privy to that. You know, arbitrations, I think there's a point of principle here in terms of is there, is there preemption under the, under the joint operating agreement or, or not?
Certainly, Exxon's position is aligned with our position that because this is an acquisition of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, which is a share transaction, we're acquiring it from to Exxon subsidiaries based out of Delaware. Because that is a share transaction, where you're actually buying not just, you're not just the interest in the JOA, but you're actually, you're acquiring people, you're acquiring liabilities, buildings, a fully-fledged and operating business. That aspect, we don't see that triggering preemption rights under the JOA, and that's certainly Exxon's, Exxon's view of it. Anyway, that'd be subject to an arbitration, likely to be heard next year.
Sorry, Roger, a follow-up on that one. If this, if the arbitration will only begin next year in terms of the hearing, does your extension of the SPA cover that timeline? Is there any guidance you could possibly give us in sort of the, I think the extension mentioned that there is, you're sharing some of the economic benefit with Exxon. Is there any guidance you can provide us in sort of what proportion that might be?
Yeah. Okay. In terms of, like, we expect this to get resolved before that arbitration is where, where our sort of operating position is at the minute. Certainly the SPA does allow it to go beyond, so that the, you know, in terms of how that gets determined. We're comfortable in that aspect. In terms of the actual sharing arrangement, that's subject to, that's subject to non-disclosure on with the seller. We can't say that much, but we can't guide in terms of the level of that. All we can say is that it's an attractive transaction, you know, even with, even that, that sharing basis.
The reason being is that obviously there was, there was an early 2021 effective date. Obviously, what you need to do is to the extent that it extends, and it has done to where we are today, is there needs to be sharing arrangement, obviously. That sharing arrangement is something we're very comfortable with. you know, it's not giving up in a material part of that production, which is obviously being enjoyed by Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited shareholders today. I, I can't give you any more direction than that, obviously, because it's subject to non-disclosure.
Understood. Thanks a lot.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. There are no more audio questions. I hand back the conference to Roger Brown for typed questions. Thank you. Excuse me, I can see we have a last-minute audio question from the line of Ayodeji Dawodu with Banc Trust & Co. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks very much for the call. Just a quick question on the gas side. I just wanted to just, I guess, an idea. Has there been any pushback, I guess, from the government in terms of pricing, gas at a higher official rate? My second question is, has there been any discussion in terms of actually increasing the dollar price of gases as well? Last question, I guess, just for clarification. In terms of the financing for the acquisition, has that been locked in? I mean, was it locked in back, I think, 2021 in terms of the pricing, or is that something that would reflect more of today's elevated interest rate environment? Those are my questions, please. Thank you.
Okay, thanks for that. Let me just deal with that. In terms of the, in terms of the gas pricing, obviously, when we had the PIA come in initially, there was, you know, there were, there were different pricings for industrial consumers. We saw a softening of the gas price, but the whole intention of the PIA is really to move on to willing buyer, willing seller model. We're seeing that. Look, what we, we will see is market forces, which will drive the gas price going forward, and you'll see that our gas prices are being quite consistent around that. You know, we don't know how the market's gonna go into the future, but we do expect more demand on the gas side, and therefore, we, we, we hope for higher gas prices.
In terms of the, the way the mechanism works is it's the, the underlying contracts in the gas are dollar-denominated, but they're actually physically paid in naira. What you have is, obviously, the reference rate was CBN rate. We're now moving on to obviously the higher exchange rate, and so the future flowback will be obviously higher naira coming back in, and so it neutralizes. Therefore, you, you do effectively get dollar on the gas, dollar prices on the gas, but it's physically paid, paid in naira. In terms then, you asked a question on the acquisition financing. Look, you know, banks, you know, we would expect the banks to maintain that pricing.
Obviously, there are market forces that impact pricing, but certainly on the dollar side, for the acquisition, we don't see that really changing. You know, you never know with banks until the, the final, the final day, but we've looked at it, and we expect that pricing to maintain. Thanks.
Very much.
This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Roger Brown for any typed questions.
Okay. I, I believe I'm reading this out, but I'm gonna read it out for you, Sam, for your benefit. The question comes in regarding our oil production, is the drilling schedule designed to replace natural decline only, or do you see an opportunity for growth in oil production, particularly looking into 2024 and 2025? Which license blocks hold the most promise in this regard?
No, thank you. Indeed, the drilling program, as we see them today, we essentially drill to arrest the decline on one hand. Then, depending on the capital program as well, we probably can accelerate a few wells for growth. In terms of split, the OMLs for 38 and 41, the western axis, are actually where we hold the most value going into the future, 2024, 2025. Because if you also look at the split of our overall equity and production today, we do oil and gas put together are in the neighborhood of 75%-80% of those come from those three OMLs. That is where we concentrate our effort, because that is where also the future lies. In response to your question. Thank you.
Okay, thanks for that. I think that, believe that brings an end to this broadcast or webcast. I just wanna thank everyone for, for, for attending. The questions are very good, particularly when you only got these results at 7:00 A.M. this morning. Clearly, there's, there's a lot of quick readers and some good quality questions. We look forward to speaking to you again late October for our Q3 results. Thank you.